


Breaking Chains

by plaidshirtjimkirk



Category: Grand Theft Auto V
Genre: After the main storyline, Denial of Feelings, Halfway confessions, It's complicateddddd, Light Angst, M/M, Mutual Pining, Stringing each other along like whoa, They're disasters who take refuge in innuendo
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-20
Updated: 2019-07-20
Packaged: 2020-07-08 22:38:26
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,631
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19877224
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/plaidshirtjimkirk/pseuds/plaidshirtjimkirk
Summary: They fell into a pattern, an infinite loop. To break it, Michael has to stay or Trevor has to let him go.





	Breaking Chains

**Author's Note:**

> This is my suggestion for why Trev is so bitchy when Mikey shows up as he's playing with grenades in his driveway. Thank you for reading! <3

**.*Breaking Chains*.**

Trevor pulled the pin and for a brief moment, it was like holding sundown in the palm of his hand: fleeting. And then he let it go.

The subsequent bang brought with it a flash of gold, a rumbling in his eardrums and bones...and the routine appearance of a black sedan pulling up garage-side in the dusty street. He watched it come to a stop—watched while the scent of cash blew into a slum and a lamb fell into a shark tank.

He wasn’t sure which he’d rather be.

_Fuck._

There wasn’t enough liquor in the entire world now, not that there ever had been or would be when it came to Michael fucking Townley. It was the same feeling, whether he wore the clothes of a lover or a traitor, whether he had the swagger of youth in his step or a decade of mistakes written between the wrinkles now creasing his features. Mikey: always two steps out of reach with meaningless promises, a mirage of water in a parched wasteland of loneliness.

And yet, there he was. Again. And again and again and again and...

Despite the futility of it all, cracked lips met the whiskey bottle while Trevor’s eyes rolled back with his head. Bottoms up, he drank deep to will away the ghost now leisurely approaching, as if another unannounced visit to Sandy Shores was no more than a Sunday stroll around the block.

“T. Hey.”

His lashes parted again to a pair of black birds soaring over the colors of dusk and without facing the apparition, Trevor blindly set the whiskey down behind him. “I’d get out of the way if I were you.” He pulled another pin free and breathed a singsong, “Thank fuck I’m _not_ you, though.”

Toss. Bang. Gold. Rumble.

Sundown after sundown.

“Guess this is what fun in the desert looks like. Heh, wish I’d known about it when we were playing house here.” It was a joke, both the sarcastic-laden suggestion and how it could still pierce Trevor’s heart despite knowing its jest.

“Mmhm, yep.” Still refusing to offer even the hint of a glance over his shoulder, he reached back for the booze. “Your life in Plastic Town isn’t _playing house_ though, right? Sugar Tits, how _do_ you live in such denial?”

With the kick of a polished shoe to the driveway, Michael squinted and sucked his teeth. His shoulders were loose, hands stuffed in his trouser pockets and he jingled his keys before giving off an airy sigh. “Some things never change, huh...”

The laugh that erupted from the depths of Trevor’s throat went short-lived and preceded another swig of liquor stinging its way down. “Now if those ain’t the truest words ever spoken.” At last, he turned and thrust the bottle toward his visitor. “You’ll always be an entitled prick, for instance.”

“Oh for Christ’s sake, T, can we just—”

“Disappearing for ten years and then just showing up whenever it suits the frequent swingin’ of your moods. Must be nice, Mikey.”

“ _Look_ , man.” Shrugging, Michael pulled his hands free and slid the tinted shades from the bridge of his nose. They folded with a pointed snap. “If you wanna keep throwing grenades and pissing off your neighbors, that’s fine by me. I can go get lost for another ten if it’s what you want.”

Ouch.

Trevor peered at Michael for long enough to err on awkward silence, before his arm finally fell with the whiskey sloshing as consequence. “ _You_ are an asshole.” He relented, however, the anger that shaded his tone dissipating in the bat of an eyelash. “So what favor do you need from ol’ T this time, mm?”

Michael’s brow twitched but he wasn’t quick enough to inquire.

“What? What else would bring you to my ever humble abode again, if not to inconvenience me in some beyond annoying way?” Trevor’s fingertips caressed over grooves and smooth edges, turning the next grenade around in his hand. If his dear _compadre_ over there wanted to do this ridiculous dance every week, they’d dance. Every week. Until it got boring, of course.

 _Would_ it ever get boring, though? The name inked on Trevor’s bicep suggested he already knew the answer, but his imagination could deflect and chase a proverbial butterfly all it liked.

“Nah, it’s not...it’s not like that, T. Come on. I was in the neighborhood and felt like dropping in.”

“ _In the neighborhood_.”

Rocking to and fro on his soles, Michael remained aloof and let his gaze wander. “So, uh, drinkin' with me is an inconvenience?”

Trevor scoffed and cocked his head. “When you speak in bullshit innuendos, yeah, a bit.” The final pin hit the ground with a soft clang and the shell went rolling toward the street. _Boom_. “Buuuut I never did like doing shit the easy way, so let’s get a move on, porkchop.” He approached with a slap to Michael’s arm, his fingertips pressing inward then and trailing down to the small of his back. “Let’s _get a drink_.” The words spilled from Trevor’s lips in a dangerous half purr. “Make up for a _whole seven days_ of lost time.”

Michael’s face turned in slow motion until the tips of their noses nearly touched, his eyes half-lidded and the curl of his dark lashes prominent. He spoke just as softly then, a whisper riding out on his breath over the scent of mint and cigarettes. “Whatever it takes, Trevor.”

And that was that.

The pair approached the trailer door without so much an acknowledgement of Ron sitting on the porch, tinkering with some dilapidated tinfoil hat device as per usual. He’d have enough sense to leave soon anyway. ...Maybe. Then again, maybe not. Whatever the case, Trevor had one fuck to give at present and if Ron wanted to linger about while the whole universe rattled and his voice sang to the gods, so be it.

Wouldn’t be the first time.

His gaze met Michael’s while Phil Collins’ “I Don’t Care Anymore” played on the kitchen radio.

...Nor would it apparently be the last.

~

“I love my life,” declared a vapid voice, while cigarette smoke drifted in lazy tendrils through a conspicuous melancholy looming over the bed.

Outside, the sun had long relinquished its reign to a sea of diamonds, the moon a giant glowing pearl cradled in the lap of glittering celestial fabric. It was strange to think that Sandy Shores and Los Santos existed under this same sky, and even stranger that for ten years, Trevor and Michael had too—as separate and distinct as their places of residence. It was strange that neither yet moved now to trade the view of a rusty metal ceiling for the stars outside, strange that each found some vestige of comfort lying beside the other in less than favorable conditions.

Such was life, though: the very one Michael spoke of.

“I love it,” he repeated in a whisper, his eyes unblinking for too long.

Though an empty can was present on the nightstand next to him, Trevor flicked accumulated ash over the side of the bed. His right arm was raised and resting against a wafer-thin pillow, the crook supporting his head. The cigarette met his lips and he drew on it once more, while music no one was listening to continued wafting from the opposite end of the space; it was just Pat Benatar, anyway...

Only when the glowing orange line threatened to burn into the filter was when he put the smoke out, stretched, and finally turned his face. “So. What’s next, cowboy? Mm?”

Michael kept his attention trained on the ceiling, several moments of mock consideration passing before he answered, “The Yellow Jack?”

“...The Yellow Jack,” Trevor repeated in disdain.

Squinting, Michael licked his lips. “All right. The bar next door.”

When that suggestion was met with a huff out the nostrils, he sat up in annoyance. “The meth lab then. A fucking...road trip to the mountains, tennis at the god damn beach. Let’s steal a fucking plane and fly it until it burns up in the fucking atmosphere, I don’t know, T. What the fuck do you want me to say?”

“It’s the same shit every week, Mikey. Think about that.” Trevor pushed himself to stand at the bedside, and bare-ass naked, peered down at his companion humorously opting to remain covered by a thin sheet. “You’re not stupid. You just love denial.” From there, he itched at his groin and strutted to the bathroom for a piss while calling out, “Always have, always will.”

“Fucking whatever, man.”

It wasn’t long before Trevor reappeared in the doorway. “So, the Yellow Jack. And after that, the lab, the mountains, the beach. Then we fly into the sun. And then?”

“And then _what_?”

“How long would you say is too long, Michael? To wait for someone.” Trevor wandered to the closet and swatted at a pair of moths. “Ten years?”

Silence.

“Or is it twenty?”

Silence.

“Mm, I see.” He slid into the greatest treasure ever found at Binco—his prized pink leopard print briefs—and continued dressing. “Looks like the Yellow Jack Inn it is, porkchop.”

“Trevor.”

“Hurry the fuck up or you’ll be walking. I’m ready to stomp out some redneck ass, relieve myself of some fucking pent up aggression.”

The front door swung open and closed, Trevor’s voice muffled and permeating from the porch.

“ _Ronald, what the_ fuck _is wrong with you?_ ”

“ _Everything, Trevor!_ ”

“It’s one week,” Michael answered at last, to no one. “One week is a long fucking time.”

He dragged out the process of cleaning himself up and donning his clothes, simultaneously hoping and dreading that he’d taken too long. To no surprise, though, Trevor still sat waiting in the truck when he finally made it outside.

~

Climbing to the roof of an abandoned motel while intoxicated was both a stupid idea and cheap thrill. Driving hours to the desert to run from a reality he’d given everything up for was a fitting parallel, so naturally, Michael went along with it.

He stood at Trevor’s side under a million stars and stared into infinity itself.

“I want to love my life, T.”

“Yeah.”

“So I should stop. Man, I _gotta_ stop, it’s...”

“Yeah.”

“And we should probably...”

“For sure, Michael.”

They were quiet for a long while in a universe only big enough for two, each wondering in a drunken haze if the other knew what the hell he was even talking about. And then they questioned if they even knew, themselves.

At some point, their pinkies entwined first to test the waters, and the other fingers followed, threading together tighter and tighter yet. Was this holding with possession before letting go forever, or the intention of never letting go at all? The answer remained irritatingly elusive.

In any case, when the first rays of sunlight embraced the horizon once more, Michael’s eyes opened to find himself back in a bed which both did and didn’t belong to him. He elongated himself in a stretch, pointed his toes downward, and then looked to Trevor—watched while he took steady breaths in his sleep, focused on his barely parted mouth, and felt the magnetism drawing him in.

He used to feel this pull on his heart, twenty years ago.

Michael leaned over slowly. Their noses touched, the space separating his lips from Trevor’s closed to mere millimeters and just before it became none, a familiar ghost posed a familiar inquiry.

_What’s next, cowboy?_

He stopped short of consummating the kiss. _  
_

_Get a drink. The Yellow Jack. The bar next door..._ Michael’s gaze drifted to the side. _Actually feel alive for a few hours and then return to the life he should love, must love—the life he gave up everything, gave up_ Trevor _for._

...How long was too long to wait for someone?

And how long was too long to burn in the inferno of a self-made purgatory?

He withdrew; got up, got dressed, walked by Ron passed out on the porch couch with a beer in hand, and slid into the car. It was only 6AM and the heat was already suffocating, but that wasn’t a new feeling for Michael. He turned up the AC, pulled onto the dirt road, and drove.

It wasn’t until he reached the entrance ramp of the highway when he noticed how silent the world was outside of his mind, so he reached for the radio just in time to once again hear Phil Collins singing about how he didn’t care anymore. Must be nice.

~

He was becoming a true creature of habit. That was what Michael decided when he found himself strolling up a dusk-colored desert driveway exactly seven days after the last time he found himself doing the same thing...after a previous seven and another seven before then, and more yet. But he wasn’t the only one. In the same place, entertaining himself with the same activities, was the same person as always.

And that was when it occurred to him, the infinite loop: redundant and reiterating, comfortably uncomfortable, never a change or deviation. And in it, with no foreseeable end and no clear beginning, they were both stuck.

Michael slid the shades from his face and closed them with a snap. “...T. Hey.”

“I’d get out of the way...”

His freshly polished shoes remained in place and he said nothing more, simply opted to watch Trevor’s avoidance of him while he kept tossing grenades and drinking straight from the bottle. Someday, Michael thought, he might be strong enough to stay. Or perhaps Trevor might be strong enough to finally let him go. The latter was the path of least resistance, and what he strangely both dreaded and hoped for.

But when his eyes fell to his name inked on a bicep, he studied it for some time. And then finally... “T.”

“Time for the weekly drink, the weekly argument. The Yellow Jack, the bar next door...” Shrugging, Trevor set the whiskey down. “Let’s get a move on, porkchop. Make up for that lost time, mm?”

Michael huffed with a shake of his head. “A week? Or ten years of it?”

Raising his chin quickly, Trevor looked to him but Michael pivoted and let his footsteps carry him back to his car.

“I dunno, T. But I’m going back to the roof of the motel to try to figure it out.” The alarm disengaged with a chirp and as the door opened, he cocked his head. “You comin’?”

Trevor hesitated, scrutiny worn with conspicuous measure across his features. At last, his shoulders rose and his apathy was almost believable when he capitulated. “Ah, sure, why the hell not?” He tossed the bottle over the fence and strutted to the passenger door. “Would break up this fuckin’ monotony anyway.”

Michael breathed a laugh. “Yeah.” When he slipped into the seat, he changed the radio station to something new—some kind of electronic noise kids these days listened to. “I was thinking the same thing.”

As they drove down the street, Trevor put his feet on the dashboard and pressed his thumbs together. “So. This is really the end of us getting drinks, Mikey?”

“Shit, T. The end, the beginning.” Michael’s right hand slipped off the steering wheel and fell open-palmed between them. “Who fuckin’ knows anymore.”

It was a moment before Trevor’s fingers entwined with his own. “Good enough for me, Michael.” A beat. “For now.”

“For now,” Michael echoed. He drove past the motel and chased the sun until the last of its rays bled into the darkness—without ever letting go of Trevor’s hand, without Trevor ever letting go of his.

Hey. Maybe it was a start after all.

**Author's Note:**

> Many thanks again for checking this out! It's my first time writing for this fandom and pairing, so I apologize for any mistakes made.
> 
> My GTA V blog in tumblr hell: [aintgonnaleaveyoumikey](https://aintgonnaleaveyoumikey.tumblr.com/)


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